(a) Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to a curved backlight unit and a liquid crystal display including the same.
(b) Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display (LCD) a type of the flat panel display that is currently used and generally includes a liquid crystal material disposed between an upper substrate on which common electrodes, color filters, and the like, are formed and a lower substrate on which thin film transistors, pixel electrodes, and the like, are formed. By applying different potentials to the pixel electrodes and the common electrodes to form an electric field, the LCD device changes the arrangement of the liquid crystal molecules to adjust a transmittance of light to thereby display an image.
Since a liquid crystal display panel (LCD panel) itself of the liquid crystal display is a non-emissive light receiving device, the liquid crystal display generally includes a backlight unit disposed on a rear surface of the LCD panel to provide light to the LCD panel.
In the backlight unit, a cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) and a light emitting diode (LED) are generally used as a light source. Conventionally, the cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) having low power consumption and providing bright white light has been mainly used. However, recently, the use of the LED has gradually increased because the LED generally has better color reproducibility, longer lifespan, and lower power consumption compared to the CCFL.
The backlight unit may be categorized as an edge type backlight unit or a direct type backlight unit depending on the position of the light source for the LCD panel. The edge type backlight unit uses a scheme in which the light source is positioned on a side surface of the LCD panel to provide light from the side surface through a light guide plate, and the direct type backlight unit uses a scheme in which the light source is positioned on a rear surface of the LCD panel to provide light to the LCD panel. The direct type backlight unit has advantages; for example, it has high light utilization, is simply treated, does not have a limitation in a size of a display panel, and is relatively cheap.
When the LED, which is a point light source, is used as the light source of the direct type backlight unit, light directly emitted by the LED is not concentrated on an upper portion of a light emitting surface but is uniformly distributed over the entire LCD panel, and
a wavelength converting part converting the LED light into light having a specific wavelength may be positioned above the light source.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the disclosure and therefore may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.